The Cryptocurrencies market despite the hype has been in rapid decline from its peak value earlier this year from $880 billion to a current $280 billion. $600 billion wiped out! The cash reserves of just one company, Apple, now exceeds the value of the entire 1,627 listed cryptocurrencies and Microsoft cash reserve is more than the current value of Bitcoin.

Blockchain holds great promise and potential as a highly secure decentralized and transparent public record, but this is not the case for the promoted cryptocurrencies market. It is highly unsecure as is evident by the increasingly rampant hacking thefts. Just this year over $2 billion is reported as stolen in major hacks, there are thousands more unreported thefts from individual wallets.

Many have been selling their speculative tokens while there is still a market in fear they might be next to be hacked or value declines further. The trust in cryptocurrencies has gone and the market has been dominated by sellers rather than buyers.

WHO IS TO REGULATE?

Evolving and threatened regional regulatory control and pressure for KYC/AML compliance contributes to the sell-off pressures. Regulation itself is not a bad thing, the problem is who is going to regulate and how. For example, the SEC in the USA does not have a great record. Aside from many major frauds such as Enron and Bernie Madoff, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) reports that the Federal Trade Commission, FBI and state securities regulators estimate that investment fraud in the USA is up to $40 billion annually. This reportedly affects some 15 million Americans each year. Unfortunately, there are going to be scams, fraud and failure in the crypto market, many having no hope of delivering.

A recent Cryptocurrency $50 million raise for a Colorado claimed gold-mine used a dated 10-year old NI 43-101 expert report stating there are no reserves of any description, yet token buyers were promised a guaranteed 20% every three months, payable from raised capital. By the time the regulator finds this and acts, the money is long gone. How does this emerging crypto industry provide for some form of compliance standards to avoid such situations? This is the hard question. SEC regulation is not considered a resolution as this would only result in the same dismal track record they have in the securities market. Importantly, the SEC only regulates the USA and other regulators are regionally confined, whereas cryptocurrencies are decentralized and managed from multiple diverse, mainly friendly, global jurisdictions. Blockchain itself cannot resolve this, but somehow the crypto industry needs to have some form of global self-regulating compliance or oversight that is enforceable.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Like the early dotcom days littered with corporate disasters and failures, where misrepresentation and fantasy were rife. Ultimately the SEC imposing large fines on investment firms including Citibank and Merrill Lynch for misleading investors, yet some of the world’s most valuable companies emerged through this boom and bust. So in this crypto market, aside from the issues, and they are serious, there are opportunities. Clearly Ethereum and Ripple are integrating with traditional markets and emerging as highly valuable and viable, as are several others. TRON with over 12 million token holders has major potential if it succeeds with its decentralized web. CryptoSecure currently conducting its ICO is an opportunity with its groundbreaking platform offering unprecedented industry security for both the crypto and traditional market, helioss.io, in the middle of its ICO, is launching off-grid autonomous crypto mining and forecasts returns of 175%, worldwifi.io has just raised $25 million to launch a decentralized wifi network to generate revenues. There are going to be enterprises that excel, among the many inevitable failures, as was the case in the dotcom era.

While the cryptocurrency market is depressed, and there is little confidence or trust in the market, there are great opportunities. Delivering industry security so that everyone, including exchanges, can be safe from hackers and transact without risk of their tokens being stolen is essential for the industry. In this regard cryptosecure cryptosecure.com with its claimed proven platform security solution and the most advanced, versatile and secure industry wallets partnered through preCharge presents opportunity. The helioss.io mining clusters look great and reports from the first operating units suggest that they do deliver the projected returns and is worth looking at in this downturn.

SUMMARY

In summary, the cryptocurrencies market has great potential. It just needs to achieve security and trust for confidence to prevail. Participants need to sensibly integrate with legacy industries and fiat currencies, as there is a definite role for decentralized cryptocurrencies. If the industry cannot provide for this security and trust, then confidence becomes elusive despite the promotion and hype. Common logic dictates that there must be transparency, accountability, security, scalability and value for cryptocurrencies to realize their potential. Therefore, although it may still take time integrity of the industry ultimately needs to be established through some form of compliance vetting and oversight.

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